IthacaLit

In the guise of a beggar, Odysseus returned to Ithaca. ​

Sewing Power

My grandmother’s sewing machine hung upside downbeneath two ancient pots of violets,locked in a cupboard like a black and gold bat.Some adult magic opened up its wingsand a treadle fired the bobbin’s hum.Shavings from three decades of flight throughcurtains and dresses and damask clothsremained, caught in the ragbag below.When I was eight it seemed the focus of this thrift,had been so I could rewind strange threads on reels,sort through odd buttons and elastic,and plunge my hands again, deep intothe soft slivers of poplin, lint and lawn,smelling the coloured shreds of my mother’s youth.

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Elizabeth Davies is a public health physician at King’s College London. She has published journal articles and life writing about medicine, and recently contributed to PN Review.